One thing I think I do really well when it comes to raising my kiddos is teaching them to make eye-contact and speak to adults. I also teach phone etiquette. I've had several instances where strangers call our house and comment on how polite Ring 1 is over the phone. :) Last week I took Ring 1 and 2 to get haircuts because let's face it a hairstylist I am not.(Read previous post) Ring 2 has gorgeous red hair and he gets compliments on it wherever we go. An older women at the salon told him his hair was beautiful. I cringed, I was only in hear shot not in line of vision so I couldn't give him my "mom look." You see Ring 2 is having trouble with the masculine and feminine words for attractive and even though the word used may not be the word he wants to hear I teach him to always smile and say Thank You. This is something we are continuing to work on. I didn't hear what he said back but I thought maybe that was a good sign. No gasps, no laughing...must be okay. I pulled him aside and asked him if he said Thank You to the nice lady that loved his hair. He said no. I continued to preach my point (something I do a lot of until I remember that I'm talking to a four year old). I continued to urge him to go back into the room and say Thank You to the lady. He sat quietly and finally spoke, "But Mom, you said I'm not suppose to talk to humans." Touche.
Last week we went school clothes shopping (insert roll of eye and long sigh). It's a juggle out there. And what's with the sky high prices?? Geez! Anyway that's a different post. We stopped for lunch at Carl's Jr. cause let's face it Ring 2 had some energy that he needed to burn off and that's putting it nicely. We ordered our lunch, chose a table, and I settled in to feed Ring 3 her medly of smashed peas and something corn meal-esque but the label said corn casserole. Ring 1 and Ring 2 decided to go play while waiting on their food- this is a battle I surrendered to a long time ago, as long as they eat I don't care which one comes first- eating or playing. And that's when it happened, I saw her reach for it then tuck it back into the cards of her mind, she was battling her inner diva, but then she decided to play it and slammed it on the table with force. Ring 1 played her cool card. How can this be? She's 10! All of a sudden she was too cool to play on the toys at Carl's Jr. ??? Oh dear.
I have a dear friend and to say she is persistent would be an understatement of the century. She text me, let's see, two days ago and asked me to run in a 5k with her. I haven't ran in over a year and mind you I wasn't that good at it then. She pulled out all of the stops and pushed my every button- Don't be a chicken. You can do it, you've done it before. I'm doing it and I haven't ran in forever. DON'T BE A CHICKEN. So I decided to do it, I mean I can't let her call me a chicken. :) So I began running AGAIN yesterday. Somehow I've got to be able to run 3 miles in 3 weeks!! This mornings run= 1.25 miles and my body was screaming for oxygen and an ice pack. This should be fun :/
